Leigh Sparacino

Ch-ch-ch-changes

Usually, my parenting days vacillate wildly between these two voices, "WOW! You sure are good at this!!" and "WOW!! You sure are terrible at this. Who let you have a baby, anyway?" They are like my own little shoulder-riding devil/angels. Every now and then, though, I have one of those cosmic, earth-shaking, path-altering AHA moments, where something happens that is impossible to ignore or discoun…

Posted 1 yr. ago.

A Balancing Act. Kind Of.

I have come to hate and loathe the word "balance" - but only as it applies to any aspect of parenting. Perhaps it is because it is so annoyingly overused. Find a good balance between work and home, older and younger, husband and friends, sugar and salt ... the exhortations and admonitions seem endless and impossible. At least for me. Right now, even picking up the 10,000 books that are piled besid…

Posted 1 yr. ago.

Mom or Not, She's Not Speaking For Me

Our Mom2Mom editor-type-person, the other Sarah, asked if any of us would be interested in writing about Sarah Palin.

Posted 1 yr. ago.

Please, not another story!

I have figured something out about parenting - even if it took me 5 whole years. Once you get really, really tired of something. Once you reach some sort of personal "tipping point," your child or baby or toddler decides to let it naturally fade away. I find this a quite incredible thing. Remember how miserable you felt at the end of pregnancy? (Except for me, I was terrified to go into labor, and…

Posted 1 yr. ago.

Freedom ... and Fear

On Sunday morning, Flipper pushed down with one of her new shoes, wobbled a bit, and then took off, gliding down the sidewalk. My hand, the steadying one that has held the seat so she could start, dropped to my side. It had been a long weekend of trial runs, many falls, many tears of frustration, and then she got it. Pride â hers AND mine â knew no bounds. I could remember â barely …

Posted 1 yr. ago.

New, Very New Shoes

Flipper got new shoes earlier this week. While not exactly earth-shattering news, it does mark a first of sorts. These were the first shoes she has ever received that DID NOT come to our house in a cardboard box via UPS. No, she actually tried these on. In a store. And, blessedly, without me!

Posted 1 yr. ago.

Mom NOT Logic

The Internet has opened worlds previously undiscovered to me. Worlds, I tell you! And after some serious research on my part, (read: wasting time at work) I have discovered the ULTIMATE, the most stupefying oxymoron ever. And, for those that were dozing off or writing intricately-folded notes during eighth grade English, an oxymoron is "a figure of speech that contains two normally contradicting …

Posted 1 yr. ago.

Happy Talk

Our family is at the beach, "our" beach (Topsail), one that we have been coming to since 1971. Which is a long time. Flipper, the beach kid, the kid whose life right now seems to be one llooonnnnggg vacation, has made some remarkable strides and breakthroughs recently. There is the swimming in the ocean, which on the surface seems like a good thing, but like so many little developmental leaps, has…

Posted 1 yr. ago.

No Mushy Anything!

I have this belief (one of many, actually) that as we get older we are more accepting of our own quirks and faults, but less tolerant of others'.

Posted 1 yr. ago.

Money, her stack

Money, it's a crime/ Share it fairly but don't take a slice of my pie / Money, so they say /Is the root of all evil today / But if you ask for a raise it's no surprise that they're / Giving none away (Pink Floyd) The above will, hopefully, become Flipper's new mantra. I have been debating/over thinking/wrestling with the concept of kid+money. And not how much I spend on her, either. What, she does…

Posted 1 yr. ago.

about this blog

Leigh Sparacino

Leigh is a TriangleMom2Mom featured blogger, appearing every Monday.

Leigh grew up in Durham, attended college in North Carolina, left the area for an island off the coast of Georgia, the high mountains of Colorado, and her favorite mountains in western North Carolina, before returning to the Triangle eight years ago. She lives near Carrboro with her 4.5-year-old daughter Flipper and two dogs. She is single in marital status only, surrounded by friends, family, and her daughter's very involved and loving father. She works part-time and tries to be as involved as possible in her daughter's school, The Emerson Waldorf School, where Flipper is a kindergartner. She likes wood, glass and other natural materials for toys, loves the principles of Waldorf education and hates plastic. She might be the only person in the world with no TV and who hasn't been to a movie in 15 years, but races to the mailbox every Saturday for the most recent issue of People magazine. In other words, a contradiction. Or just human.